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Wau fire, 9 December 2017 Wau

Out · last detection 20 Dec 2017, 12:09 UTC

The fire started on 9 December 2017 in Wau, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,869 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 115th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 42 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area
11,869ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
9 Dec 2017 – 19 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Dec
2017
Heat detections
490
in a single hotspot: 113 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Dec19 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181920

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high
38km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,287 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Wau where it started
    11,955 ha reached on 5 Dec
    0.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
9 Dec 36.2 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Dec 37.6 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Dec 38.2 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Dec 38.1 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Dec 37.6 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Dec 37.3 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Dec 36.4 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Dec 36.2 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Dec 36.3 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Dec 37.1 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Dec 37.4 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Dec after 38.2 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Dec after 38.6 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Dec after 38.3 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Dec after 38.9 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Dec after 38.3 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Dec after 36.1 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Dec after 34.6 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Dec after 35.6 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Dec after 37.7 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Dec after 38.5 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 2 Dec 2017
After · 26 Dec 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 490Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Wau fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 December 2017 and 19 December 2017: 11 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,869 hectares (118.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Wau (11,955 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South Sudan (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.